Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Hi friends! life is good in Florida--we are enjoying Grandpa's pool and his funny quips. Grandpa's memory is still a little shady but we have already seen improvements since we arrived!

Improvements despite Stage 3 brain cancer? Yes! Thanks to your continued prayers, God is sustaining him and we are able to spend time with the Grandpa we always knew. We also have the diet rehaul that the twin and my mom implemented to thank.

(an example of how witty my grandpa is: When asked by his physical therapist if he felt he was able to go into the kitchen and make a sandwich all by himself he immediately replied, "Well, NO!" "No?" asked the PT. "No," my grandpa replied, "I've been taken over by Vegans!")

And, it is true. My grandpa has eaten entirely vegan since coming home from the hospital. This is an INCREDIBLE change in his life as his favorite things to eat tend to be chocolate sandwich cookies, corned beef hash, and cheese + syrup sandwiches (he's Dutch, don't ask). So how did that caramel corn that I made him for last week's tutorial go over at the Vegan house? Don't ask about that, either! Let's just say friends at my Bible Study were very happy on Wednesday morning.

In honor of his new Vegan lifestyle, this week's tutorial is how to make Vegan Banana Bread. I tried it and , even as a non-vegan, I thought it was delicious! I hope you'll like it, too! let me know if you try it and your thoughts...

instead of

we will be using:

I am using Prune Butter in place of butter and flax seed + water in place of eggs. (in case you couldn't see the tiny container of prune butter hiding in the back, it looks like this--please don't be alarmed it really is tasty!)

(side note, I took organic, unsulphured prunes and pureed them in my blender with as much water as needed to make a thick paste. It can keep in your refrigerator for a month. Sometimes i even dip a spoon in the container if i'm looking for an all-natural sugar quick-fix. Told you i was weird!)

You can also add these delicious spices (highly recommended to do so unless you are allergic!): Allspice, Cloves, and Cinnamon.

Here are the amounts (and, to all my across the pond friends, let me know if you need conversions!):

3 really ripe medium/large bananas

1 tbl ground flax seed + 3 tablespoons distilled/purified water

1/2 cup prune butter (i hear jars of prune baby food also works well. just make sure it is 8 tbl or 4 oz!)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1.5 cup flour (+ more as needed--this amount can vary as your prune butter may be thicker or thinner than mine)

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbl baking soda

1 (heaping) tsp cinnamon

1/4 (rounded) tsp allspice

1/8 (heaping) tsp cloves

1 tsp vanilla

Alright, now that you have your ingredients handy, time to whip up the egg substitute. I start with fresh Flax Seeds and grind them as needed (ground flax seed, interestingly enough, can quickly go rancid as soon as it is ground so grind only what you will use!)

I took one tablespoon of flaxseed, ground it in my coffee grinder, and then mixed all of it (the ground seed turns out to be more than a tbl) with 3 tbl purified water.

Stir well and set aside--in about ten minutes it will reach a consistency similar to egg whites. Like so:

Meanwhile, take your very ripe bananas and mash them until no big lumps remain (i like to keep a few chunks of banana in my batter because it tastes yummy in the bread!) Usually I use a fork to mash them but it seemed like the KitchenAid would serve the same purpose:

I like to add the sugars in next and let it sit for a minute or two to interact with the sugars in the bananas. It makes it a little sweeter, in my opinion.

While the sugar and bananas interact, thoroughly mix together all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl (sorry no picture but, seriously, it would have been one boring picture anyway!). Also, give the flax seed mixture a quick stir, too.

Okay! Now you are ready to mix in the pureed prunes (aka prune butter), the flax seed "eggs", and the vanilla! Stir well. Don't worry about the flecks of prunes that are in the batter--you won't be able to taste them as bananas overpower it!

Now slowly mix in your dry ingredients, ensuring that the batter is well blended. It will be lumpy but that is a-okay in my book! I like a little texture in my bread :)

The batter should look like this:

the beautiful thing about vegan cooking is that you can lick the batter without worrying about salmonella!!!

Since we did not use any added fats except for the flax seed, make sure you spray your pan well. I use Baker's Joy since it contains a little flour, too.

Bake at 350°for 60 minutes, or until golden brown. I found that this batch was still pretty doughy after an hour so it actually cooked for 75 minutes. Just make sure you keep checking it--you don't want to ruin the delicious fruits of your labor!